"You and Hélène are two silly, vulgar, little schoolgirls. I didn't think you could be so—so common, Barbara. What on earth would father and mother say?"
"I daresay they wouldn't mind so very much," said Barbara calmly, "so long as they didn't know about the notes and our having met once or twice in the garden."
"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Alex. "You think it sounds grown-up, and so you're exaggerating the whole thing."
Barbara looked at her sister, with her eyebrows cocked in a provoking, conceited sort of way, not angrily, but rather contemptuously.
"Really, Alex, to hear you make such a fuss about it, any one would think that you'd never set eyes on a man. Of course, that sort of thing happens as soon as one begins to get grown-up. It's part of the fun."
"You know mother would say it was vulgar."
It was almost a relief to see one of Barbara's rare blushes at the word.
"I don't see why it should be more vulgar than you and Noel."
"How can you be so ridiculous! Of course, that was quite different. We were both grown-up, and properly engaged and everything."
"Alex," said Barbara suddenly, "when you were engaged, did he ever kiss you?"